We reported a few weeks ago about a letter sent by Nezar Hamze of CAIR South Florida, a constituent of Allen West’s district, expressing his concern at West’s anti-Muslim rhetoric and associations with extremists and hatemongers. West responded to Hamze’s letter with a one word reply, “NUTS!”:
In attempting to explain what the Miami New Times called possibly the “dumbest thing ever written on congressional stationery,” some have latched on to the likelihood that he is “channeling a famous line by an American general fighting the Nazis during World War II. During a battle with German troops in Western Europe, Gen. Anthony McAuliffe was told that the Germans wanted his men to surrender. He replied, ‘Us surrender? Aw, nuts!’”

Instead of condemning the radical company that he has been keeping, Rep. Allen West decided to tell Hamze to ‘go to hell.’ West implies Islam is akin to Nazism and that Muslims are modern day Nazis. This aligns well with the Islamophobic belief that Islam is not a religion but rather a totalitarian political ideology that seeks to conquer and subjugate the entire world. To say this dehumanizes Muslims would be an understatement.

West and his supporters, perhaps smarting from the blow of this latest PR disaster decided to hold a town hall on “terrorism” as well as a rally against Nezar Hamze and CAIR:

Instead of helping their cause, Allen West and his supporters undermined it even more by exposing their radicalism and stubbornly clinging on to their conspiracies of infiltration and subversion by “Mooslims.”

For instance Peter Lebowitz leader of something called (Senior?)Citizens for National Security stated at the rally, “They(muslims) are not in large numbers at this point but they have infiltrated our schools, our colleges, our government, our treasury department. They are not coming to the gate, they are inside the gate!” He also said that “if we don’t wake this country up, your grandchildren and my grandchildren will not know America,” “we are being attacked and they are everywhere.” Sounds kind of like Anders Breivik doesn’t he?

Rev.O’Neal Dozier spoke plainly without any of the sugar-coating some Islamophobes are accustomed to:

He’s not in the video, but Rev. O’Neal Dozier was also named in the CAIR letter as an anti-Islam extremist tied to Congressman Allen West. His words were unambiguous.”“I believe Islam, period, is a danger to this country,” said Dozier, a former George W. Bush advisor who leads a large church in Pompano Beach where Allen West has spoken. “The only true Muslim is an extremist … true Muslims are terrorists.”

Interestingly, Joe Kaufman was questioned about his call for nuking Muslim countries after 9/11 and far from repudiating the comment he struck an ambiguous tone:

Reporter: “Do you support the nuclear bombing of Iran?”

Joe Kaufman: “No…um, well, I would never say whether I would support that or not.”

All of these individuals are intimately linked with Allen West. They are his base of support, and they are not confined to southern Florida or Allen West’s district. It remains to be seen if Allen West’s star will continue to shine on the Right-Wing or whether such antics will relegate him to being a one term Congressman.